Solomon is
one of Handel’s finest oratorios - which means, of course,
that it is very much in the premier division as far as this
genre is concerned. It is not one of Handel’s most intensely
or consistently dramatic oratorios – though there are some
fine dramatic episodes, such as the familiar story (with its
source in 1 Kings 3:16-28) of the judgement of Solomon
in the case of the two women who both claim to be the mother
of a boy infant. On the whole, many of Solomon’s great
virtues lie elsewhere.

Winton Dean put
it beautifully and perceptively in his famous book of 1959
on Handel’s Dramatic Oratorios andMasques (Oxford
University Press). He wrote of the work’s affirmation of “a
kind of rational pantheism, not uncharacteristic of its century
but seldom presented with such a glow of creative imagination”
and considered that “Solomon is Handel’s picture of
the golden age, an ideal world in which inner tranquillity
is balanced by the outward splendour and aesthetic delights
of a successful civilization”. That there should also be a
degree of political flattery and idealisation of the England
of George II does nothing to contradict the presence of this
larger, less immediately topical, meaning and theme. In the
service of his subjects, both immediate and universal, Handel
wrote some very fine music indeed – as in the sensual and
tenderly amorous chorus “May no rash intruder”; in the anguished
aria “Can I see my infant gored”, sung by the true mother
of the contested child; in “Bless’d the day”, sung by Solomon’s
wife in Act I; and in much, much else. But, as is suggested
by the comments from Dean which I have quoted above, Solomon
is more than just a collection of beautiful musical episodes;
while it may not have an obvious narrative coherence, it has
a profound thematic coherence – a study in government, in
justice and married love, in nationalistic envy and more.

The benchmark
recordings of Solomon are those by John Eliot Gardiner,
on Philips (412612-2) with The English Baroque Soloists, The
Monteverdi Choir, Carolyn Watkinson, Nancy Argenta, Barbara
Hendricks, Anthony Rolfe Johnson and others, and that by Paul
McCreesh (DG Archiv 4596882),
with the Gabrieli Consort and Players and soloists including
Andras Scholl, Inger Dam-Jensen and Susan Gritton. Both set
very high standards of musicianship and interpretation which
rather put this new version in the shade. The playing of Frankfurt
Baroque Orchestra is perfectly decent and there are some effective
and attractive moments, but there are also rather too many
times when rhythms plod and the subtlety of Handel’s writing
is not successfully articulated. The choral singing of the
Junge Kantorei copes pretty well with the intricacies of Handel’s
writing – some of the choruses are in eight parts – without
being consistently convincing, without always being able to
communicate the sense of wonder and glory in some of the finest
of the choruses. Of the soloists, Ewa Wolak is often striking
and generally persuasive; Elisabeth Scholl is less consistently
successful - she disappoints, for example, in “Bless’d the
day”, but makes partial amends in duet with Wolak in “Welcome
as the dawn of day”; Nicola Wemyss has an attractive soprano
voice, but one might have hoped for more passion and grandeur
in some of her contributions as the Queen of Sheba. Kurt Schoch
makes some valuable contributions, though he sometimes has
difficulty in negotiating Handel’s more complex writing; Matthias
Vieweg is a decent, if not especially individual, Levite,
but, in common with a number of the other soloists, his English
diction and pronunciation leave a good deal to be desired.

This is, admirably,
a complete recording of Solomon and I daresay that
if one had been in the audience for this performance in Rheingau
one would have found it a perfectly acceptable way of spending
the evening. But I am not sure that it is a performance which
most will want to listen to repeatedly. This is especially
the case given the very high quality of the competition provided
by the recordings under Gardiner and McCreesh. This new recording
is, of course, much cheaper than either of those; but it is
also much inferior. Solomon is very much a premier
division oratorio – but this isn’t, I’m afraid, a premier
division performance.

Though a live
recording, there are relatively few extraneous noises and
the recording quality is perfectly acceptable. There is a
good booklet essay by the conductor and a synopsis – the texts
are provided online, as is the Naxos way of late.

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